The Securities and Exchange Commission sued a Chicago man over claims he fraudulently raised more than $145 million primarily from Chinese investors by promising that their investments would provide a pathway to US citizenship.

Anshoo R. Sethi, 29, duped more than 250 investors into believing that backing his project to build a hotel would give them access to the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Pilot Program, the SEC said in a Feb. 6 complaint unsealed yesterday.

“Sethi orchestrated an elaborate scheme and exploited these investors’ dream of earning legal US residence along with a positive return on their investment in a project that was not nearly the done deal he portrayed,” Stephen Cohen, associate director of the SEC’s enforcement division, said in a statement.